Improving the Lives of Teachers in the Early Care and Education Field to Better Support Children and Families

• Published date: 01 July 2019
• Date: 01 July 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12362
• Author: Elizabeth K. King,Deborah J. Cassidy,Christine Lippard,Joanna K. Lower

D J. C University of North Carolina–Greensboro

C L Iowa State University

E K. K Missouri State University

J K. L University of North Carolina– Greensboro

Improving the Lives of Teachers in the Early Care

and Education Field to Better Support Children

and Families

The future of healthy families demands highly

capable external supports. Early care and edu-

cation, particularly early care and education

teachers, are well positioned to support families.

However, early care and education teachers are

faced with challenges to their own well-being

and that of their own families. Barriers to

teacher well-being include low compensation,

lack of support for education and professional

development, and a larger societal context that

often devalues and inadequately supports the

profession. The future of healthy families can

be bolstered by addressing early care and edu-

cation teacher well-being—specically wages,

work environment, and professionalism—and

increasing support for high-quality early care

and education from community and societal

systems.

Many children are being raised within

single-headed and dual-income households that

Department of Human Development and Family Studies,

Iowa State University,1354 Palmer 2222 Osborn Dr., Ames,

IA 50011 (maynard1@iastate.edu).

Key Words: early childhood education, family, teacher,

workforce.

rely on early learning environments outside of

the home for various kinds of support (Laughlin,

2013). In this article, we explore the dependence

of families on out-of-home care and education

for their young children. We also examine how

teachers in these early-learning settings provide

critical support for families while struggling

to meet the needs of their own families. We

use the term early care and education (ECE)

to describe the full spectrum of early-learning

environments for young children (e.g., child

care, preschool, prekindergarten, etc.). We use

the term teacher to include all members of the

ECE workforce who are paid to provide direct

care and education to children, including those

who work in nonprot and for-prot child care

centers, Head Start and Early Head Start, public

prekindergarten programs, and family childcare

homes. Although the physical, emotional, social,

and cognitive needs of children were once met

almost exclusively within the family setting,

that responsibility is increasingly shared with

teachers in ECE settings (Gable, 2014), and the

potential for ECE to address opportunity gaps

has resulted in initiatives to reach more children

from families experiencing low socioeconomic

status (Garcia, Heckman, Leaf, & Prados, 2017;

Heckman, 2011). However, the development of

infrastructure to support ECE teachers has not

288 Family Relations 68 (July 2019): 288–297

DOI:10.1111/fare.12362